Best programming and hacker quotes. Ever.
Curated by fellow hackers Jarmo Pertman & Andri Möll
What is the difference between a Turing machine and the modern computer? It's the same as that between Hillary's ascent of Everest and the establishment of a Hilton hotel on its peak.
Alan J. Perlis
First, solve the problem. Then, write the code.
John Johnson
On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.
Charles Babbage
You're never done, you just run out of time.
Anonymous
KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid
Anonymous
If it works, leave it alone — there's no need to understand it. If it fails, try to fix it — there's no time to understand it.
Bill Pfeifer
The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance.
Robert R. Coveyou, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll use regular expressions." Now they have two problems.
Jamie Zawinski
This is important, and a little hard to understand. English is useful because it's a mess. Since English is a mess, it maps well onto the problem space, which is also a mess, which we call reality. Similarly, Perl was designed to be a mess (though in the nicest of possible ways).
Larry Wall
They did not know it was impossible, so they did it!
Mark Twain